“In a remarkable illustration of the power of lobbying in Washington, a study released last week found that a single tax break in 2004 earned companies $220 for every dollar they spent on the issue — a 22,000 percent rate of return on their investment.” A new study by three University of Kansas profs tries to quantify exactly the amount of lucre generated by the lobbyists and influence-peddlers aswarm in Washington for their employers. And the answer? A whole lot. “The paper…examined the impact of a one-time tax break approved by Congress in 2004 that allowed multinational corporations to ‘repatriate’ profits earned overseas, effectively reducing their tax rate on the money from 35 percent to 5.25 percent. More than 800 companies took advantage of the legislation, saving an estimated $100 billion in the process.” [Hattip: Tim C. and Marginal Revolution.]
Tag: Lobbyists
Public Service Announcement.
Here’s one to grow on: If you’re looking to represent the little people by taking on a cabinet position in our nation’s government, please deign to pay the taxes you owe on your chauffeurs, nannies, sinecures, and assorted other luxuries. Thanks much.
Also, for what it’s worth, I guess it’s possible that Tom Daschle was really God’s Gift to Health Care Reform, as he was recently made out to be when his nomination tanked. (His ideas seem solid, but, his book aside, we didn’t see that much of that side of him when he was Harry Reid 1.0 for years and years.) But I think it’s just as likely that his strong lobbyist ties would’ve made him ineffectual in the post, and the Daschle-friendly administration — a lot of candidate Obama’s core people were Daschle hand-me-downs — wouldn’t ever have been able to cut him loose. So, all the recent teeth-gnashing aside, this might very well have been a blessing in disguise.
Opening Windows, Closing the Revolving Door.
“‘We are here as public servants, and public service is a privilege,’ Obama said, addressing his White House staff and Cabinet on his first full day in office. ‘It’s not about advancing yourself or your corporate clients.'” Also part of President Obama’s very solid first day: An executive order kicking out the lobbyists and imposing a gift ban on White House employees. “‘We need to close the revolving door that lets lobbyists come into government freely and lets them use their time in public service” to promote their own interests when they leave, the president said.” [Official Order.]
And, in another welcome executive order, the new President also overturned Dubya’s secrecy rules with regards to presidential records, thus making life much easier for historians in the future. “[E]very agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information, but those who seek to make it known.” (This also means Pres. Obama only has nine more left to overturn on Dubya’s worst ten.)
McCain: Grey Cell Green.
“I’m not running for president because I think I’m blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save our country in its hour of need. My country saved me. My country saved me, and I cannot forget it. And I will fight for her for as long as I draw breath, so help me God.” Wait…John McCain was a POW? Who knew? (And how big of him to run the first completely selfless and ego-free presidential campaign in American History. A true patriot, he.)
I suppose I should’ve gotten my post up about McCain’s speech some time yesterday…but, really, what’s the rush? However well-watched, John McCain’s nomination address to the nation on Thursday night felt like a virtual political non-event. [Transcript.] I mean, c’mon now: I sat through three days of mind-numbing inanity and blatant falsehoods, distasteful 9/11 videos and endless surge talk, for this? (By the way, memo to Lindsey Graham, Tom Ridge, and anyone who happens to buy into the oft-repeated line of argument that “McCain was right in Iraq because of the surge.” Our recent involvement there began several years earlier, with McCain cheering on Dubya’s idiotic invasion and boasting of an easy victory. Remember that?)
Now I don’t think the speech was as woefully terrible as some — it was probably better than his last greenscreen speech, for example. (I am struck by the fact that today’s decaying GOP is so sickly it can’t even manage to exploit veterans for political gain properly anymore. What happened to you guys?) But, to my mind, Sen. McCain’s remarks definitely didn’t get the job done, unless — like me — you think the job that needs doing right now is getting Barack Obama elected to the Oval Office.
The most affecting moments of McCain’s speech were, naturally, in his discussion of his POW experience, and if the Republicans hadn’t beaten this point into the ground over the past few days, his retelling of those dark days might’ve packed a real emotional wollop. (“After I turned down their offer, they worked me over harder than they ever had before. For a long time. And they broke me.“) But, after all the reveling of late in McCain’s horrible stay in the Hanoi Hilton, and all the attendant plaudits to military heroism and sacrifice, country first etc. etc. served up as sides by the GOP during thus, McCain’s humdrum delivery of an otherwise subpar nomination address reminded me of nothing so much as another praiseworthy war hero wounded in his nation’s service: Bob Dole.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a nomination address in today’s GOP without some highly dubious propositions therein:
And so on. I’d spend more time picking McCain’s address apart if I thought it had been in any way effective. But, the POW-section notwithstanding, it felt rote as written and rote as delivered, and — in opposition just as in support — it was a hard speech to get all that fired up about. With Sen. Obama up in the states he needs and Dems mobilizing new voters all across the board, McCain needed a real gamechanger Thursday night. (Imho, the automatic dispenser of lousy headlines that is Sarah Palin is just going to keep backfiring, and the party of Lincoln continues to toy with the disgusting “Uppity Sambo” card at their peril.) In short, he didn’t get it.
There’ll be a bump — there always is. But, to my mind, John McCain’s climb just got a whole a lot steeper. Barring some monumental revelation, egregious debate flub, or international incident over the next two months, it’s hard to see McCain getting any closer to victory in 2008 than he is right now. And over the next eight weeks, I would nevertheless expect a lot of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents, perhaps momentarily flush with good feeling for McCain, to think it over, remember the past seven years, look over at Sarah Palin in the veep slot, and decide to put their country first…by voting for Sen. Barack Obama for president.
Obama: No Public Financing.
“‘It’s not an easy decision, and especially because I support a robust system of public financing of elections,’ Obama said in a video message to supporters, circulated by his campaign. ‘But the public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken, and we face opponents who’ve become masters at gaming this broken system.’” Sen. Obama announces he will forego public financing for the general election.
Hmm. I was originally hoping the two candidates, based on their respective campaign finance reform bona fides, might come to an agreement that would make public financing work. But it’s become painfully clear that Sen. McCain has been gaming the system thus far, and at this point I wouldn’t trust him as far as I can throw him. The McCain campaign is calling Obama’s decision “a broken promise of staggering dimensions,” but frankly that dog’s not going to hunt. Sen. Obama has not only run a lobbyist-free campaign thus far, but has now even purged the DNC of their taint (give or take a few loopholes.) Meanwhile, the McCain bandwagon is absolutely crawling with lobbyists, and they apparently even feel free to conduct their business with impunity aboard the unfortunately-named “Straight Talk Express.”
Plus, with its enormously successful small-donor, Internet-based model of financing, the Obama campaign has brought new meaning to the term “public financing” anyway. So, while I’d ultimately like to see a public financing system that works, Sen. Obama still has enough credibility on this issue, I think, that his opting out doesn’t trouble me all that much. Put another way, Sen. Obama has a long way to go before he seems as full of it on campaign finance reform as McCain appears these days.
My friends (are lobbyists), my friends. | FEC: Nope.
While the NYT’s botched bombshell involving Maverick and Iseman has thus far only seemed to help Sen. McCain to make nice with his unreconstructed right flank, the WP posts an A1 follow-up showing how the story may bite McCain yet. To wit, his campaign is completely dominated by lobbyists. “[W]hen McCain huddled with his closest advisers at his rustic Arizona cabin last weekend to map out his presidential campaign, virtually every one was part of the Washington lobbying culture he has long decried.“
Meanwhile, concerning the “other” McCain scandal at the moment, the Republican head of the FEC, David Mason, comes down against McCain’s attempted gaming of the public financing system, and argues he can’t duck out of public financing now. “‘This is serious,’ agreed Republican election lawyer Jan Baran. Ignoring the matter on the grounds that the FEC lacks a quorum, Baran said, ‘is like saying you’re going to break into houses because the sheriff is out of town.’”
Update: Newsweek‘s Mike Isikoff, one of the also-rans for the Iseman scoop, pokes a hole in McCain’s denial. Regarding the Paxson letters to the FCC, McCain said yesterday that ““No representative of Paxson or Alcalde & Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC.” The problem? This contradicts a sworn deposition by McCain taken in 2002, when McCain said: “I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue.” D’oh!
Update 2: Now, Paxson says he met with the Senator, despite McCain’s statement to the contrary. “Paxson also recalled that his lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, attended the meeting in McCain’s office and that Iseman helped arrange the meeting. ‘Was Vicki there? Probably,’ Paxson said in an interview with The Washington Post today. ‘The woman was a professional. She was good. She could get us meetings.’“
Vicki don’t lose that number.
“Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers. A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.“
Remember the hubbub back in December over a spiked NYT story about John McCain and some lobbyist shenanigans? Well, it finally dropped, and it involves possible favorable treatment for — and a possible romance with — a young female telecom lobbyist, Vicki Iseman (who, it must be said, looks eerily like Cindy McCain.) “In interviews, the two former associates said they joined in a series of confrontations with Mr. McCain, warning him that he was risking his campaign and career. Both said Mr. McCain acknowledged behaving inappropriately and pledged to keep his distance from Ms. Iseman.” So there’s definitely smoke, but is there fire? This story doesn’t quite stick the landing on either the romance (both parties deny it, although they did seem to spend some time together) or the lobbyist favors (it does mention McCain urging the FCC in 1999 (before my time there) to back an Iseman client, Paxson Communications, at her request, and it rehashes McCain’s involvement with the Keating 5.) But perhaps there’s more to the story? If there isn’t, I don’t really see this having legs. Update: The WP follows up with their own version, which notes that Iseman used to tout her McCain connections to other lobbyists. Still no smoking gun, tho’.
Update: The McCain campaign has responded here, calling the piece a “hit and run smear campaign.” (This response, however, sidesteps the question of a possible affair. For what it’s worth, McCain has admitted to extramarital affairs during his first marriage. And, while he voted to convict Bill Clinton during the impeachment fiasco, he also said then that “I do not desire to sit in judgement of the President’s private misconduct. It is truly a matter for him and his family to resolve…I have done things in my private life that I am not proud of. I suspect many of us have.“)
Update 2: It looks like release of the NYT piece was prompted by a TNR story about the Grey Lady holding back, which [Updated] came out today. (Apparently, other news outlets have been chasing the story too.) In the meantime, we can content ourselves with a better documented, albeit less sexy, McCain scandal, namely his obvious gaming of the public financing system: “What we know is that McCain found a way to use the public funds as an insurance policy: If he did poorly, he would use public funds to pay off his loans. If he did well, he would have the advantage of unlimited spending. There’s a reason no one’s ever done anything like this. It makes a travesty of the choice inherent in voluntary public financing, between public funds and unlimited spending…Legal or not, it should bring to an end whatever tiny thread of credibility John McCain still has as a straight-talker or reformer of the political process.“
The Clinton Money Crunch.
“We are very frustrated because we have a Supreme Court that seems determined to say that the wealthier have more right to free speech than the rest of us. For example, they say you couldn’t stop me from spending all the money I’ve saved over the last five years on Hillary’s campaign if I wanted to, even though it would clearly violate the spirit of campaign finance reform.”
So said Bill Clinton only a little over a month ago. But, as per the norm with the Clinton campaign, things have now changed: Word leaks out that Senator Clinton is not only planning to self-finance her candidacy with personal “loans” (a la Mitt Romney), but that she already gave her campaign $5 million out-of-pocket last month. (Indeed, money’s gotten so tight around the Clinton camp that, according to Time‘s Mark Halperin, senior staff are now going without pay.)
Meanwhile, Sen. Obama is on pace for another $30 million month and has room to grow, mainly because he’s relying on a wider pool of small donors rather than (as per Senator Clinton) a smaller pool of maxed-out donors and an army of lobbyists. (Which reminds me, Senator Obama accepts donations here.)
I for one doubt Sen. Clinton’s campaign will really run out of cheddar. If anything, the campaign probably put the story out there so as to encourage their supporters to donate in the same fashion as Obama’s have. Still, this Clinton cash crunch further indicates how much of their election strategy was predicated on a Super Tuesday knockout punch. Having swung and missed, the Clinton camp is now nearing broke, and seriously hurting.
More to the point, even notwithstanding the inherent shadiness of self-financing, which no less than Bill Clinton attested to above, this move puts President Clinton’s penchant for troubling deals — such as his recent venture in Kazakhstan — right in the thick of things. Hard to ignore in any event, now this story comes front and center. If the Clintons are breaking into their private stash to get Senator Clinton elected, where did the money come from?
Don’t forget the parasites.
“The feeding frenzy begins this week at the Senate Finance Committee. At least that’s the hope of dozens of interests eager to get a free ride on the first must-pass piece of legislation of the year: the economic stimulus package.” As the House passes its bipartisan economic stimulus package 385-35, lobbyists make a mad dash across the Capitol to get their hooks into any Senate tampering with the legislation. “That’s why every lobbyist worth his e-mail address has trained his sights on the marble floors and wood paneling of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, home to the powerful finance panel.“
Siljander: Al Qaeda’s Clay Davis?
Republican ex-Congressman and lobbyist Tom Siljander is indicted for money laundering, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy, based on his ties with the allegedly terrorist-connected Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA). “According to the indictment, the money was stolen from the U.S. Agency for International Development, and Siljander lied to federal agents about his role.” He is apparently pleading not-guilty. “Siljander, a favorite of religious conservatives, declared war on abortion, pornography, the Equal Rights Amendment and school busing. But he lost his 1986 reelection bid after urging clergy members to support him in order to ‘break the back of Satan.’”